Partial Credit Counts

Skip a question. Turn in the test.

I never gave an exam. In my leadership courses, students and I learned in dialogue, alongside one another as much as we could, not with me pouring facts into empty vessels. The real test was never written down. It was showing up, taking an interest, and making the work matter in your own life. Some students praised that. Others ridiculed it. Few had taken a course like it before.

A ballot is a written test, but you can grade it the way the unwritten one was. Showing up is most of the grade. You don't have to vote for everyone. You don't have to vote for anyone. You can show up, check in, mark the contests you've studied, leave the rest empty, and drop it in the box. That ballot counts. So does every choice on it, including the choice to pass.

There's no extra credit, either. Every term, students came looking for it as a Hail Mary, a way to salvage a grade from a system that had taught them the points were the point. Broken institutions break people. An election offers no December assignment to rescue a November you skipped.

This page is for anyone who has stood in front of a ballot and thought none of the above, or the lesser of two evils, or it was all decided in May anyway. Those are honest thoughts. Staying home is one answer to them. It isn't the only one, and it may be the weakest.

Three doors into the same booth

Many of us arrive at Election Day less informed and less engaged than we'd like. We get there by one of three doors: chance, choice, or force. Most of us have walked through more than one.

By chance: the unbothered. Some people have simply been spared. The daily chaos hasn't reached their porch yet, or hasn't seemed to. But it's already there, in the road you drive to work, the school your neighbor's kid attends, and the jail budget your property taxes help cover. The ballot is where those things get decided, whether or not anyone is watching.

By choice: the dug-in. Some tune out on purpose. Others tune in to only one channel, until their team has filled in the ballot before they've ever read it. Willful ignorance doesn't carry a party label. Every party has its dug-in, and so does every non-party. If that's you, the invitation is small: read one contest fresh, as if you'd never heard of either name. Start with the job, not the jersey. Who Does What: The Offices on Your Ballot explains what each office is meant to administer, so you can weigh each candidate against the work.

By force: the exhausted and the politically homeless. Some people are too busy surviving to study. Two jobs, a sick parent, a car that may not start. Others are politically homeless: no party fits them, and the menu offers nothing they'd order. Moderates, mavericks, and the registered independents shut out of Kentucky's May primaries all end up here, pushed rather than walking. For you, the promise of this page is simple. Ten minutes and a partly filled ballot is full participation. It is not a lesser form of it.

The blank is not blank

Leaving a contest empty is called an undervote. Kentucky counts votes race by race. The State Board of Elections' rule defining a vote treats each contest separately, and it defines an overvote, marking more choices than a race allows, as a problem in a single race (31 KAR 6:030). So a blank race spoils nothing else on your ballot. Even an overvote usually gets a second chance. If you vote in person and mark too many choices, the scanner flags it, and you can cast a fresh ballot (PolitiFact, 2024).

The blanks also leave a trace. Election analysts track roll-off, the drop between how many people voted at the top of the ballot and how many voted further down. A ballot with a deliberate blank says something specific: I was here, I cared enough to come, and nobody in this race earned my mark. That signal is on the record.

Staying home sends no signal at all. It also erases you from everything else on the ballot, including the races most likely to be decided by a handful of votes: school board, city council, soil and water, and constitutional amendments like this year's Amendment 1. Skipping one contest is a choice. Skipping the election gives up all your choices at once. And there's no makeup exam. Miss this one, and you sit out the game until the next election comes around.

The lesser of two evils, and the protest vote

There are two serious answers to the "lesser of two evils" problem, and neither is foolish.

The first is harm reduction. Someone is going to win this race. Your vote can help decide which someone, even if you'd rather neither. Holding your nose is still a way of steering.

The second is the signal. A vote can read as an endorsement. Withholding it, or casting it elsewhere, tells the parties that their offer wasn't good enough. Over time, that pressure is how offers improve.

This page won't pick for you. The point is that your ballot lets you make that call one contest at a time. You might hold your nose for sheriff, cast a sincere vote for magistrate, and leave the clerk's race blank. That's three different judgments, and each is yours.

Straight-ticket voting is the one move that makes those calls for you, all at once, by label. Kentucky ballots still open with a straight-party option, and Kentucky is one of only a handful of states that keep it (WinCity Voices, n.d.). A straight-party mark covers only the partisan races. It does not cover the judicial races, the school board, the city races, or Amendment 1. Those need their own marks. The easy button skips part of the test.

There's an escape hatch, too. If you mark a straight-party ticket and then mark a candidate from another party in a particular race, Kentucky counts your individual choice for that race and gives the rest to the party (31 KAR 6:030, Section 5). A party label can be your default without being your final answer.

One question is still open. If you mark a straight-party ticket and leave one partisan race blank, does the party mark fill that race in, or does your blank stand? The regulation doesn't say outright. I've asked the Pendleton County Clerk's office and will update this page when I hear back.

A word on protest write-ins. In Kentucky, a write-in vote counts only for a candidate who filed to be a write-in (31 KAR 6:030, Section 4). So writing in an unfiled name, or a cartoon character, works out the same as leaving the race blank. That isn't a reason not to do it. It's a reason to know what it does. The details are in How a Write-In Vote Counts in Kentucky. And if your protest impulse is strongest when only one name is printed, see One Name, One Box.

Who wrote the test?

Showing up is the floor. Reform is the renovation. If the ballot keeps feeling like a bad exam, it's fair to ask about the exam's design. Three reforms come up again and again, and each one answers a different frustration.

Ranked-choice voting answers "the lesser of two evils." Under RCV, you rank candidates in order of preference. If your first choice can't win, your vote moves to your next choice. That lets you vote sincerely without worrying that you've thrown your vote away. In Kentucky, though, RCV isn't on the table. It's off the table by law. Legislators banned it in April 2024 by overriding Governor Beshear's veto, making Kentucky the sixth state to do so (Ballotpedia News, 2024).

The ban covers every local, state, and federal office, and it voids any local ordinance that conflicts with it (KRS 117.147). So Pendleton County couldn't pilot RCV even if it wanted to. Supporters say RCV rewards sincere preferences and produces majority winners. Opponents say it confuses voters and can elect someone who wasn't most voters' first choice. Some Kentucky legislators took a middle position: it was too soon to ban something the state had never tried (Horsley, 2024).

To see the argument for ranked choice made at its most persuasive, watch CGP Grey’s two-part explainer. It uses a cartoon animal kingdom and openly argues against the system most of us use, so watch it as a case, not a verdict.

Watch: CGP Grey, “The Problems with First Past the Post Voting Explained.”

Watch: CGP Grey, “The Alternative Vote Explained,” the British name for ranked-choice voting.

Open primaries answer "it was decided in May." Kentucky is one of eight states with fully closed primaries. Only registered Republicans and Democrats can vote in their own party's primary (Horsley, 2026a). On May 19, 2026, about one in ten registered Kentucky voters couldn't cast a primary ballot for that reason, and registered independents are the state's fastest-growing group of voters. Where one party dominates, the primary can be the only race that really decides who serves. That's why some candidates run under a party label mainly to be viable in May.

In the 2026 session, a Republican and a Democrat each filed bills that would let the parties open their primaries to independents, and Secretary of State Michael Adams supports letting independents choose a primary (Horsley, 2026b). The counter-argument deserves its hearing too. Senate President Robert Stivers and House Speaker David Osborne said they would oppose opening primaries, and opponents argue that anyone who wants a say in a party's primary can simply register with that party.

Alaska combines both reforms, pairing a top-four open primary with a ranked general election. Alaska Public Media walks through how it works.

Watch: Alaska Public Media, “Alaska ranked choice voting, explained,” on a top-four open primary paired with a ranked general election.

Nonpartisan local elections answer the candidate who wears a label just to get on the ballot. A county clerk doesn't keep Republican records or Democratic records. A jailer doesn't run a partisan jail. Kentucky already runs some of its races without labels. Judicial races and school board races are nonpartisan, and some cities hold nonpartisan elections. County offices, by contrast, are partisan by statute. That's my understanding, and I've asked the Pendleton County Clerk's office to confirm which races on our ballot carry party labels. I'll update this page when I hear back. Part of your ballot already works this way. It's fair to ask why the rest doesn't, and fair to hear the answer that party labels give busy voters a useful shortcut.

Each reform opens a different door a little wider. RCV helps the dug-in who are tired of holding their noses. Open primaries help the independents locked out in May. Nonpartisan local races help everyone by letting the clerk's race be about the clerk.

None of these reforms will arrive on its own. Kentucky banned one by statute, and another has stalled in committee. Whether any of them changes depends on who learns to use civic power and who leaves it to others. Eric Liu makes that case better than I can, and without telling you which way to use it.

Watch: Eric Liu, “How to understand power,” TED-Ed.

Come as you are. Turn it in.

You don't need to be an expert to vote. You don't need an opinion on every race. You need to show up, answer what you can, and hand it in.

If you came through the door of chance, take one minute with the offices on your ballot. If you came through the door of choice, read one contest as a stranger would. If you came through the door of force, bring your ID, mark the one race you know, and know that it's enough.

The infinite game isn't won in November. It's kept going by people who keep turning in the test, blanks and all.

References